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TIie F1,uda111e11tals
first of these questions, the claims of the peninsula are supported by an overwhelming mass of tradition and of authority, ancient and modern. "If this question be considereil as settled, then it remains to inquire which of the mountain summits of that group of hills in the southern end of the peninsula, which seems to be designated in the Bible by the general name of Horeb, should be regarded as the veritable 'Mount of the Law?' Five of the mountain summits of this region have laid claim to this distinction; and their relative merits the explorers [those of the English Ordnance Survey) test by seven criteria which must be fulfilled by the actual mountain. These are : ( 1) A mountain overlooking a plain on which the millions of Israel could be assembled. (2) Space for the people to 'remove and stand afar off' when the voice of the Lord was heard, and yet to hear that voice. (3) A defined peakdistinctlyvisible from theplain. (4) A moun tain so precipitous that the people might be said to stand under it and to touch its base. (5) A mountain capable of being isolated by boundaries. (6) A mountain with springs and streams of water in its vicin-ity. (7) Pasturage to maintain the flocks of the people for a year. "By these criteria the surveyors reject two of the mountains, Jebel el Ejmeh and Jebel Ummalawi, as destitute of sufficient water and pasturage. Jebel Katharina, whose claims arise from a statement of Josephus that Sinai was the highest mountain of the district, which this peak actually is, with the exception of a neighboring summit twenty-five feet higher, they reject because of the fact that it is not visible from any plain suitable for the encampment of the Israelites. Mount Serbal has in modern times had some advocates; but the sur veyors allege in opposition to these that they do not find, as has been stated, the Sinaitic inscriptions more plentiful there than elsewhere, that the traces of early Christian occupancy do not point to it any more than early tradition, and that it does not meet the topographical requirements in presenting a defined peak, convenient camping-ground, or a sufficient amount of pasturage. "There only remains the long-established and venerated Jebel Musa-the orthodox Sinai ; and this, in a remarkable and conspicu ous manner, fulfils the required conditions, and, besides, illustrates the narrative itself in unexpected ways. Thia mountain ba1, how ever, two dominant peaks, that of Jebel Musa proper, 7,363 feet in height, and that of Ras Sufsafeb, 6,937 feet high; and of theae the
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